But it is the style with which this wild farce is developed that sustains our horrified interest and keeps us laughing as the darkness gathers around Barbara and Oliver. [11 Dec 1989]

For closeup conflict and emotional kick, the Frost/Nixon movie tops the play. But neither can match the tension and weird poignancy of the original interviews -- reality TV of the highest, queasiest order.

M.A.S.H., one of America's funniest bloody films, is also one of its bloodiest funny films.

"Shrek," this film's prime competition for the first Animated Feature Oscar, is a synoptic parody of fairy tales. In Monsters, Inc. the gags aren't as spot-on but the technique is miles ahead. The vision is grander and warmer.

Beyond the Hills may be the best movie no one will want to see in 2013.

For all its intelligence, Mank isn’t anything close to a masterpiece; it’s more a pleasurable feat of derring-do, a movie made with care and cunning and peopled by actors who know exactly what they’re doing.

It's a gentle film about somewhat alien beings, who entertain us by creating instead of destroying.

The film is seductive, disturbing, enthralling -- a trip to hell that gives the passengers a great ride.

Pariah should be a special, important film for gay teens and their parents.

It has the kind of tension and energy -- maybe even a touch of delirium -- that is only a memory in most of today's big studio movies.

It is a powerful portrait of a slightly befuddled man who, when inhuman demands were placed on him, found within himself an unexpected response.

No matter what you take away from writer-director Halina Reijn’s daring, alluring, and ultimately joyful Babygirl, one idea flutters around it like a potent perfume cloud: both desire and the memory of it are what make us feel alive.

Whose Streets? is rough around the edges, like a torn photograph whose borders have also been raggedly burned. But that's more a strength than a liability.

Remarkably, thanks to this documentary, we hope for the sake of this smart, vibrant, apparently good-hearted woman, that the invitations keep coming.

No film since Preston Sturges was a pup has so shrewdly appreciated the way the eccentric plays hide-and-seek with the respectable in the ordinary American landscape; no comedy since Annie Hall or Manhattan has so intelligently observed not just the way people live now but what's going on in the back of their minds; and finally, and in full knowledge that one may be doing the marketing department's job for them, it is the best movie of the year.

Bad Education is a story of small-town villains who just can’t help themselves, and it’s fun to see how their own carelessness trips them up. These are people we can’t trust, played by actors we trust implicitly. Why not be flimflammed by the best?

At its best it perfectly expresses the fears and loathings of kids who came of age in the late '60's; at its worst Animal House revels in abject silliness. The hilarious highs easily compensate for the puerile lows.

In a movie of subtle tones and wild swerves, Pike expertly mixes a cocktail of hot and cold blood. She is the Amazing Amy you could fall for, till death do you part.

The movie wants to entertain and educate, not leer, about people flummoxed by participating in a revolution they had meant only to calibrate, and at that it succeeds handsomely.

The best movie of this very young millennium.

It is a mark of Voight's intelligence that he works against his role's melodramatic tendencies and toward a central human truth. In the process, he and Hoffman bring to life one of the least likely and most melancholy love stories in the history of the American film.

Nichols—director of Take Shelter, Mud and, most recently, Midnight Special—tells the Lovings’ story in a way that feels immediate and modern, and not just like a history lesson.

Silence is something to see whether you’re certain there’s a God or whether you just believe in sunlight, which covers just about everybody.

This is a jewel box of a movie for anyone who loves either Hitchcock or Truffaut–or better yet, both.

Clint Eastwood has crafted a bold and meticulous epic.

This loose retelling of Carlo Collodi’s weird and often unsettling 1883 fantasy novel (the screenplay is by del Toro and Patrick McHale) is a little too long, and hammers away too eagerly at its central idea: that fathers who expect too much of their sons can do untold emotional damage. Even so, del Toro’s creation is clever and lively and just strange enough to keep you guessing what’s coming next.

Sayles is a meditative storyteller, with a tendency to mute melodrama rather than letting it wail. But he is also one of the few filmmakers still ferreting out the strangeness and anxiety hidden beneath our poses of ordinariness. [22 July 1996, p.95]

Refn's mix of grindhouse horror with sweetie-pie sentiment is a recipe mastered by Takeshi Kitano (and, in his own way, David Lynch), but this director's brew is simpler, more direct, less cerebral and less heartfelt. To invest oneself emotionally in the central relationship, or the movie itself, would be akin to investing oneself emotionally in one's car. But when the car looks this good and drives this fast, why not?